There is a strong consensus among analytic philosophers that Husserl is an internalist and that his internalism must be understood in conjunction with his methodological solipsism. This paper focuses on Husserl's early work the, Logical Investigations , and explores whether such a reading is justified. It shows that Husserl is not a methodological solipsist: He neither believes that meaning can be reduced to the individual, nor does he assign an explanatory role for meaning to the subject. Explanatory priority is assigned (...) to objects which have an intrinsic property independently of any access or attitude we may have to them. Although not a methodological solipsist, there are nonetheless internalist elements to Husserl's thought: He believes that we can think of non-existent objects and his account of indexicals and demonstratives shows that there are two kinds of meaning: one is context independent and internally individuated, the other is partly determined by context and so externally individuated. The paper leaves it open whether this is sufficient to mark Husserl out as an internalist. However, even if he were considered as such, we can be sure of one thing, namely, that his internalism would not be a species of methodological solipsism. (shrink)

Michel Henry wishes to salvage Descartes’s first principle ‘I think, I am’ by claiming that there is no need to appeal to the world or others to make sense of the self. One of his main targets is Edmund Husserl, who claims that thought is necessarily intentional and thus necessarily about something that is other to thought. To show that this is not so, Henry draws on passages from Descartes’s texts which emphasize that we should not equate the cogito with (...) thinking but with sensation and imagination. This allows Henry to explore the notion that the self has its own form of manifestation. This paper questions Henry’s reading of Descartes and his critique of Husserl on two fronts. First, the passages Henry draws upon, if anything only confirm, rather than question Husserl’s claim that consciousness is intentional. Second, Henry believes that he can show that the life of the self is infinitely rich without having to appeal to other persons or, indeed, to the world. Yet, I wish to contend that Henry is mistaken: as Husserl has shown convincingly, a life without others and the world is not only impoverished and bereft of meaning, but remains entirely indeterminate. The self only manifests itself with respect to others and the world. (shrink)